Movie review: Film shows civil rights titan Thurgood Marshall as a young lawyer

Friday

Oct 13, 2017 at 7:30 AMOct 15, 2017 at 12:03 PM

Dana Barbuto The Patriot Ledger

Contrary to what you might think, “Marshall,” from director Reginald Hudlin, isn’t a full-on biography about Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, Hudlin (“Boomerang”), working from a script by father-and-son scribes Jacob and Michael Koskoff, narrows the focus to show one of Marshall’s career-defining cases – and it’s a doozy. Salacious, even by today’s standards, with its triple whammy of sex, violence and race. What results is a racially charged courtroom drama that speaks to much of the civil unrest in today’s world.

Taking place in the Jim Crow era, long before the trailblazing Marshall argued the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education, a black man is wrongfully accused of raping a white woman.

Chadwick Boseman (“42”) plays the title character, a confident young attorney, impeccably dressed from fedora down to the leather briefcase containing his law books. It’s 1941 and Marshall hangs out with writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. He’s a rising star for the NAACP, which sends him all across the country to defend clients accused of crimes due to their race. In this case, Joseph Spell (Emmy-winning Sterling K. Brown from “This Is Us”) is a black chauffeur accused of sexual assault by his employer’s wife, Greenwich socialite Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson). Pairing up with Marshall, then 33, is local insurance lawyer, Sam Friedman (Josh Gad, Olaf from “Frozen”), who reluctantly steps in to file a petition to allow the out-of-state Marshall to practice in Connecticut. The no-nonsense judge (a stern James Cromwell) has other ideas. He bars Marshall from speaking in court but allows him to serve as co-counsel. From the get-go, our main character is neutered. Friedman is ordered to argue the case he wants to drop like a hot potato. “I can’t get involved. This will destroy my practice,” he tells Marshall. And he’s right. The stink-eye comes fast and furious from his very insular Jewish community.

In playing Marshall, his third historical African-American figure after Jackie Robinson and James Brown, Boseman is all swagger, delivering an elegant and eloquent performance – despite not being allowed to speak in the courtroom. This hinders the movie – one of history’s best orators and the film’s title character must refrain from using his voice. His big rousing speech eventually comes, but it is delivered on the courtroom steps as Marshall addresses reporters. That leaves Gad, an actor more known for comedic roles, with the juicer part. And Gad, who can adeptly handle the demands of courtroom theatrics, flat-out steals the movie.

In support, Dan Stevens is poised and exasperated as the waspy prosecutor; Hudson, a veteran of too many bad rom-coms, proves an interesting casting choice; and Brown is pitch-perfect as the stoic defendant.

On merit alone, the fact-based story ably generates drama. If there is a problem, it is in the film’s procedural structure that limits development of the characters outside the courtroom. But Hudlin’s excellent ensemble is strong enough to yield a palpable representation of who these people were and the spirit that drove them.

But the movie belongs to Gad and Boseman. They are especially engaging in their out-of-court scenes, whether they are arguing, investigating or sharing a cocktail. There’s resentment, camaraderie and the type of awkwardness you might expect between a Jewish man and a black man in white upper-class Greenwich. Marshall points out in one scene that Friedman is a lawyer that “doesn’t even know he wants to make a difference.”

Hudlin has two good movies on his hands: one about Marshall and another concerning Friedman. Perhaps next time justice will be served and one of them will get the full Hollywood biopic treatment.

Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@ledger.com or follow her on Twitter @dbarbuto_Ledger.

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